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Tuesday, December 6, 2016

It's Nobel Prize week in Stockholm. Each of the distinguished recipients will give a lecture on his field, and the media will duly take note, although the attention of the world will be focused mostly elsewhere.

Far more people tune in to various sports events, or to the Grammies, than to the Nobel ceremonies.

So maybe it's time to spice those dry speeches up a bit, to stir up more interest in the hard sciences like chemistry and physics. To turn the Nobel Prizes into something the public actually wants to see. Like the Super Bowl.

The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics is being split between David J. Thouless, F. Duncan M. Haldane, and J. Michael Kosterlitz. Each will undoubtedly bore their audience silly with some soporific speech which will hardly inspire the average teenager to take up physics.

Why not borrow pages from the worlds of sports, and hip hop? Athletes understand that a little trash talking increases the gate. Why are the Nobel laureates too dumb to realize this?

Imagine if Mr. Thouless -- a condensed matter physicist from the UK -- were to channel, say, heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder. He could get up on stage and say the following:

"Man, this feels great. I'm just real excited, you know? It just feels great to have a real Englishman, you know, bring the Prize back to the UK, where it belongs. Britannia rules! You notice these other two dudes, Haldane and Kosterlitz, they only got a quarter of the prize each, while I got a half. I wanna give a shout out to the Nobel committee for recognizing me, but for real, I shoulda got the whole thing. I don't want to be a poor sport or nothing, but the fact is, I am the man, the true champ. In fact, I am the greatest physicist of all time! But really, I'm just all about having fun, I like to have fun with physics, man, otherwise it's not worth it. Anyway, I just wanna thank the Lord, I know He was behind me on this one, and I'm blessed to have won this award."Then, as Thouless leaves the stage, he could do a cute little hip-gyrating shuffle.

How much more publicity would that speech generate? How much more entertaining would it be?

The more these guys understand that G + I = B, the more students will understand E = MC squared.

Or how about Yoshinori Ohsumi, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine this year, for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy? He should follow Kanye West's lead:

"Hey, I appreciate this award and all, but let's be honest -- I am the number one human being in medicine. That means that any person living or breathing is number two....Medicine is the new rock and roll. We are the rock stars, and I'm the biggest of all of them....Come on, how could you be me and want to be someone else?....I'm like a vessel and God has chosen me to be the voice and the connector...My greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself think."

Then, as he walks off the stage with a raised fist, "Banzai!"

If you want to proclaim your own greatness, there's no point in being inhibited about it.

These guys should also show a little more camaraderie, maybe with some youthful hijinks to dispel some of the dullness. A couple of those scientists should arrange to pour a bucket of Gatorade onto the winning scientist's head.

Hey, it's all about making science sexy!

Shake up those bottles of Dom, spray the fizz, and turn Stockholm into a party town!

Sunday, December 4, 2016

-- shows that while her husband Keith appears to be consumed with love, or at least passion, Sherri is giving the cameraman an appraising look. She reminded me of a bit of Karen Sypher, the woman who blackmailed Kentucky basketball coach Rick Pitino --

All three women have crucifixes displayed on their chests. Papini's crucifix is more discreet, her cleavage less so.

I'm not saying Papini is a sociopath like the other two; but neither is an angelic face a guarantee of innocence. Of course, if her case turns out to have been a genuine abduction, then she's obviously an innocent victim.

But in the meantime, there are a lot of unresolved questions.

Why would two Hispanic women kidnap her and keep her captive for three weeks? It doesn't sound as if they sexually abused her. (If they did, it would be the first case I've ever heard of where a couple of rampaging lesbians went around kidnapping women to molest.)

They didn't make any ransom demands, either. So what did they want with her?

Papini evidently has said that she didn't get a good look at them because they kept their faces obscured or kept her face covered. But she has also described them as an older Hispanic female with straight hair and heavy eyebrows, and a younger Hispanic female with long curly hair and pierced ears. (So which was it?)

If the Hispanic females allowed her to see their faces well enough to describe them, why did they allow her to survive? Papini was reportedly left by the side of the road "for dead." But according to Papini, the two Hispanic females had a handgun, and if they wanted to leave her for dead, why not make sure?

Also, why leave her right by the side of Highway 5, a major interstate, in broad daylight? If you have someone you expect to be a corpse, you dump the body off in the middle of the woods -- preferably, buried -- in the middle of the night.

It was said that they had chopped Papini's hair off. But the woman driver who spotted Papini by the side of the road and called police said that the woman she saw had long blonde hair. So which is it? Or was it that only part of her head had been shorn?

Panini was also said to have been left with her hands chained to her waist. But the driver who spotted her said that she was waving something that looked like a shirt. How do you wave a piece of cloth if your hands are chained to your waist?

Papini was described by her family as a "super mom," and the media has since used that term to refer to her. But it has also been reported that both of her children had been in full time child care. Given that Papini did not work, how was she "super?" Because she was pretty and because she jogged?

These are not all inconsistencies that came directly from Sherri Papini; but they do need answers.

Initially, her husband Keith was a suspect, but he evidently passed a lie detector test. But he wouldn't necessarily have been in on a hoax. (And it is possible to fool a lie detector test if you know what you're doing.)

The police have said that this abduction appears to have been real. They seem to be basing this on the fact that Papini was covered in bruises, weighed only 87 pounds, and had been branded. These are certainly strong indications that Papini was not making up her story. But it's not impossible that someone determined enough to stage her own kidnapping would have these things done in order to convince people it was real.

(If it was faked, then Papini is suffering from "Munchausen's Syndrome," that peculiar form of sociopathy in which people fake illnesses or great hardships in order to win others' sympathy.)

It is true that she lived in the so-called Emerald Triangle, which consists of Mendocino, Humboldt, and Trinity Counties, and is the largest marijuana-producing area in the US. Evidently some of the Mexican cartels have set up camp in the thick forests in the mountains there. And the Triangle is also supposed to be an area active in sex trafficking.

One of the initial theories was that the two Hispanic women worked for a cartel.

But Papini says she was abducted while jogging along a road, and cartels do not set up shop on roadsides. And if she had been kidnapped for sex trafficking purposes, she would not have been let go after three weeks. Although it's always possible that her kidnappers were scared off by all the publicity surrounding her case, and decided they didn't need the heat.

Anyway, it's yet unclear what transpired. But before any conclusions are reached, some of the inconsistencies will have to be accounted for.

Saturday, December 3, 2016

I far prefer the New York Post to the New York Times. The Post is less pretentious, has a much more reality-based editorial section, and has articles that you actually want to read. If the Times is dinner, the Post is dessert.

Sometimes, maybe too much so.

You've probably heard by now that a woman named Sherri Papini was kidnapped, then released a few weeks later, in northern California. (Yahoo and other outlets have given this story plenty of coverage as well.)

A question with an obvious answer is, would the Post, and other news outlets, have run so many articles about Papini's abduction if she weren't so delectable?

Of course not.

(Many of those articles featured videos which included more shots of Papini looking mouthwateringly sexy.)

There have been plenty of other cases of kidnapping and rape which get far, far less publicity. But few of those women looked as if they could be the prototypes for future sexbots.

There are murders which get less attention than Sherri did. In fact, there are multiple murders which get less.

For the past two weeks, the New York Post might as well have been called the New York Papini.

I'm not claiming to be any better than anybody else. I read every one of those articles. I, too, looked at those pictures of Papini and thought, damn. And I wondered exactly what had happened to Papini during the two weeks when she was held hostage. Exactly what had happened.

I'm only human.

And so are the Post's other readers, which is why the Post and all those other news outlets paid so much attention to the abducted jogger, as she is now known.

Google "Sherri Papini" and you'll get 892,000 results.

After all, the business of journalism is to attract as many readers as possible.

The Post does it with titillation.

The Times does it by constantly trying to show that it is more "high-minded" than the Post and its ilk. Even if that supposed "high-mindedness" means ignoring and denying human nature at every turn.

Ted Bundy, born Theodore Robert Cowell, grew up living a lie. Ted’s mother, Louise Cowell, was single when she gave birth to him and in the 1940’s that was a serious no-no. Ted’s grandparents took their daughter in, telling young Ted that his grandparents were his parents and his mother was his sister.

As if that wasn’t messed up enough, Ted’s grandfather, Samuel Cowell, is rumored to be his biological father. Although it was never confirmed, if the rumor is true, that would make Ted Bundy the product of incest.

Here's the picture they provided of a young Ted with his grandfather (and maybe father):

If the rumor is true, then Ted inherited three-quarters of his genes from Samuel Cowell. And Louise Bundy never gave up the name of Ted's father, which tends to lend credence to the rumor.

The incest also raises the possibility that Ted's mental problems were organically-caused. Ted was wasn't inbred-looking, in fact was often described as handsome. But that doesn't negate the possibility that the incest resulted in brain defects.

I had always assumed that Louise was a cold, harsh woman whose lack of love for her son turned him into the monster he became. But if she had been raped by her father, Louise was just another victim herself.

In addition to the shame of bearing a child out of wedlock, Louise must have worried about how the incest would affect Ted. And all of those feelings must have been subtly communicated to Ted from the moment he was born.

Louise Bundy was evidently steadfast in her defense of her son up until he started confessing. It sounds as if she actually believed in his innocence, too, which, while the height of naivete, is understandable in a mother.

On the day he died, she told him twice, "You'll always be my precious son." Which makes it sound as if she actually did love him.

Most of the pictures I've seen of her, like the one above, showing her lean, tough face, and the severe hairdo she kept all her life, gave her a somewhat stark and forbidding demeanor. But reading about her has softened my view of her. And what can you do if, as a young girl, you're raped by your father?

None of Louise's other four children -- all fathered by her husband John Bundy -- ever got into any significant trouble. Which would indicate that it was Samuel Cowell, and not Louise, who put the curse on Ted.

The other thing I hadn't known was that Bundy had helped take down the Green River Killer:

It’s surprising to see the words “help” and “Bundy” in the same sentence. In a surprising move, Bundy contacted the detective that helped put him behind bars, Robert D. Keppel, while he was on death row. Keppel was working on the “Green River Killer” investigation, desperately seeking to stop the infamous killer. Bundy was able to help Keppel understand the inner workings of a serial killer’s mind, ultimately helping the detective identify Gary Ridgway and bring him to justice.

This is a little reminiscent of Clarice Starling going to visit Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs in order to obtain his help in tracking down the serial killer "Buffalo Bill."

Buddy's probable motivation for helping out was to prevent the Green River Killer from surpassing him. (Bundy, like many serial killers, took a certain proprietary pride in the number of his victims.)

I had known of Bundy's job at the suicide hotline before. But his motives for doing so weren't purely to appear noble. Sociopaths actually savor other people's pain. And where better to experience that than on a phone with someone who is so distraught they want to take their own life?

Ted Bundy is probably the most famous serial killer in history, the first person people think of when they think of serial killers. He's the archetype, the bogeyman whose name is shorthand for everything evil and twisted. Much has been written about him over the years, a lot of which I've read. I'm surprised I'd never heard the incest rumor before, or about how he'd helped find the Green River Killer.

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

In February 2014 I pointed out that former NFL star Darren Sharper, who'd been accused of eleven druggings and seven rapes in four states, was also active in A Call to Men, an organization dedicated to preventing violence against women.

The point of the post wasn't that it was surprising that a guy active in that organization would turn out to be guilty of sexual assault. It was that you should actually expect a sociopathic serial rapist to do something like that. What better cover for being a rapist than to pose as an advocate for women? It's not as if a sociopath is going to be bothered by his own hypocrisy.

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

For all that the Left talked about how Donald Trump does not have the right temperament, he's shown remarkable forgiveness in the three weeks since he's been elected.

Today he had a phone conversation with Michael Bloomberg, who had said during the campaign that "we must unite around the candidate [Clinton] who can defeat a dangerous demagogue," and that "I'm a New Yorker, and New Yorkers know a con when we see one."

Trump evidently decided to forgive, if not forget.

Mitt Romney said during the campaign that Trump was a "phony" and a "fraud."

Now Trump is reportedly considering Romney for Secretary of State.

During the campaign, Ted Cruz said that Trump "doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth. The man is utterly amoral. You know, morality does not exist for him.”

Since the election, Trump has met with Cruz and is reportedly considering him for the Supreme Court.

None of those salvos went unreturned during the campaign, of course; in fact, it was often Trump who started the battles.

But Trump's moves since the election are not those of a hothead. (Would Hillary have tried to mend fences with people who'd savaged her the same way?)

It's reassuring that Trump's been able to put his ego aside. (Who'd have guessed it from his Tweeting history?) These meetings were probably his advisors' ideas, not his; nonetheless, just agreeing to them was statesmanlike.

Trump has also made some good tactical moves. Today he named Elaine Chao as Secretary of Transportation. (That seems to be one of those positions where you hear about the appointment and then never hear about the person again.)

That was a neat three-fer. He got to tick off the "woman" box, the "of color" box, and Chao also happens to be Mitch McConnell's wife, so now Trump has the Senate Majority Leader in his pocket as well.

Naming Nikki Haley (above) as Ambassador to the UN was a nice twofer: a woman of subcontinental Asian descent. (Though she's got to be the whitest-looking Indian ever.)

And with loyalist Ben Carson as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (another position where you never hear about the person after the appointment), Trump now has a black Cabinet member as well.

Most of the wits I've known have been stamped with the "smart" sign in one way or another: they did well on standardized tests, went to fancy schools, and pursued some career associated with above average IQs.

But, some of the wits have not.

I recently spoke with a 63-year-old woman who'd had some ambition when young, but who has spent the second half of her life working in clerical positions. She came from a dysfunctional background, and was never encouraged to pursue any sort of academic interest. She was also a beauty when young, and most people saw her primarily in that light.

I made some small suggestion to her about something which was bothering her. She replied, "Too late. Mental equilibrium has left the building."

My initial reaction was, hmm, clever -- I wouldn't have thought to phrase it that way.

She said other clever things as well.

And I found myself wondering, how smart is she? I probably understand more stuff than her; but, I've probably made more of an effort to. And I wouldn't have come up with that rejoinder, nor some of the others. So I really can't judge her intelligence.

Sometimes, a positive impression is largely a matter of not being familiar with the limits of the person's repertoire. But sometimes, there's a genuine, undeniable wit there. And you're left wondering.

Usually, it's all too easy to see someone's lack of intelligence.

When someone lacks logic, you can see their limits clearly.

When someone spouts cliches, or recites old jokes, and then looks proud, their lack of originality is painfully apparent.

When someone is only willing to harbor "respectable" opinions, you can see their lack of intellectual courage quite clearly.

When someone thinks you'll be interested in a two minute diatribe about their health status, well, enough said.

But when someone may not be interested in same things you are, or may have different opinions, but has clever ways of talking and different ways of looking at things, they seem smart. Are they? It's hard to tell.

Not entirely coincidentally, I witnessed the same woman change her opinion based on a fact she had been previously been unaware of. (Open-mindedness in a 63-year-old is probably even more impressive than plain old wit.)

That was a refreshing change from witless "intellectuals" too timid to think thoughts that are verboten.

One interesting corollary to all this is that black people tend to have good senses of humor. Despite a lower average IQ, they are better at saying funny stuff, and appreciating funny things.

And in that regard, the converse is also true: Northeast Asians may have the highest average IQs, but when was the last time you heard one of them say something genuinely funny?

(How does all that reflect on the woman? I don't know.)

I explored the somewhat tenuous relationship between IQ and a sense humor a bit here, six years ago.

In any case, clever people are fun. And, high IQ or not, it's sorta nice not to be able to see someone's limits.

Saturday, November 26, 2016

These days, if you're not in favor of affirmative action, you're considered morally repugnant. But, if you ever suggest that a specific person of color benefitted from affirmative action, you're also considered morally repugnant.

How is that not contradictory?

The idea seems to be that you must support affirmative action, but then pretend that nobody has ever been granted preference because of it.

Which, of course, makes absolutely no sense.

The fact is, it's something that virtually every white person takes into account when they hear about a black person's academic pedigree.

This may have something to do with why you never even hear phony white liberals rave about how brilliant Michelle Obama must be for having gone to both Princeton and Harvard Law School.

Of course, only the rudest person would say, "Well, of course she got in because of affirmative action."

The extent to which IQ has simply disappeared from public discourse has been amazing. It's not even mentioned in the context of noting how those horrible racists think there's a genetic difference between the races when it comes to intelligence.

It has simply disappeared.

It's almost as if the Left realizes that they've lost the nature/nurture argument, so feel it's best to just not bring up the subject.

Forty years ago the nature-nurture controversy was still a hot topic: are differences in intelligence genetic in origin, or more due to the environment? Even though political correctness had not set in during the 1970's the way it has now, the battle lines -- and arguments used -- were strikingly similar to what they are now.

On the Left were arrayed such luminaries as Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould, who would invariably try to turn what should have been a scientific argument into a moral one, and would invoke America's long history of slavery and discrimination to back up their arguments.

Gould tried to draw a parallel between geneticists and the old time phrenologists. And those on the Left would frequently try to tar their opponents by associating them with the KKK, or by saying that Hitler held similar views (sound familiar?)

On the right were the men widely regarded as heretics: Richard Herrnstein, William Shockley, and Arthur Jensen. All three were widely reviled by student activists at the time. But all stubbornly stuck to their view, knowing they had the facts on their side, even if those facts were unwelcome.

As the evidence accumulated, eventually it became plain that intelligence is largely genetic in origin. All the studies comparing IQ differences between adoptive siblings and biological siblings, or between separated identical twins and regular siblings raised together, pointed in the same direction. And every sophisticated mathematical analysis applied to studies of IQ pointed toward regression to a different mean for each race.

Environment obviously can play a role: if a child is starved as a youngster, or kept in a closet his entire life, that will obviously have a strong negative effect. But, by and large, differences in IQ are due to genes.

Herrnstein, Jensen, and Shockley all acknowledged that environment does play a role; however, those in the nurture camp refused to concede any role to genetic differences.

In 1994, Herrnstein and coauthor Charles Murray briefly reawakened the controversy with The Bell Curve, an 845 page book of which three pages were devoted to racial differences in IQ. Herrnstein and Murray were of course roundly denounced for their heresy; soon after the issue went back to sleep. (Come to think of it, you rarely hear the phrase "bell curve" these days, either.)

But after decades of affirmative action, Head Start, disparate impact lawsuits, countless movies and TV shows featuring wise blacks and foolish Anglos, and even a black President, all those racial differences stubbornly persist. The SATs, ACTs, LSATs, GMATs, MCATs, PISA scores, the various Regents exams, the Army's ASVAB test, and the various other civil service exams, all show the same rank order of finish.

All of which combine to make clear that your IQ is as genetic as the features on your face.

So, IQ never gets mentioned anymore. Because once you take it into account, the whole edifice of liberal thought comes tumbling down. Once a realistic look at IQ enters the picture, all the talk of how our schools and teachers are failing us looks misguided. All the talk of racism as the explanation for the differences in accomplishment, all the talk of white privilege, all the talk of disparate impact, just look sort of....silly.

As silly as saying that the only reason the men's weight-lifting records are better than the women's is because of sexism.

As silly as suggesting that the only reason 64 out of the last 64 finalists in the men's 100 meter dash at the Olympics have been black is because they had better coaching.

Ignore differences in natural ability, and you're left with a lot of inexplicable patterns and correlations.

And the most striking thing about all this is how obvious it is -- which is why you never hear IQ mentioned much anymore.

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Apart from two relapses (both involving Tweets), Trump seems to have been making an honest effort to be more statesmanlike in the past two weeks.

Trump just named Nikki Haley as ambassador to the UN, even though she supported Marco Rubio during the primaries. He seems to be considering Romney for Secretary of State, and Cruz for Supreme Court nominee, despite all the earlier rancor.

Trump's apparent decision not to go after Hillary seems another peacemaking gesture.

Those of us who wanted raw meat would have preferred for Trump to say, "Well, Hillary's not a priority of mine. At the moment I'm concentrating on getting our economy going and securing our borders. If, at the end of their investigation, the FBI recommends an indictment based on what they find with the Clinton Foundation, the Attorney General will look at the evidence and we'll make a decision from there. But right now, I'm busy with more pressing matters."

That would at least have left the door open for a later decision.

But the problem is, Hillary's health is bad. So if Trump's AG does decide to prosecute and they do succeed in getting her a prison term, and then Hillary dies while incarcerated, that makes Trump look like a vindictive guy who killed an old woman because she said mean things about him.

Make no mistake: Hillary deserves prosecution for her pay to play shenanigans. She was unquestionably corrupt.

But sending her to prison, while satisfying, will not help accomplish any of Trump's goals as President. And the vague impression the public will be left with -- thanks in large part to the way the media will spin it -- is that Trump was vengeful and merciless.

And that won't help his administration.

These are the kinds of considerations his strategists have to take into account. We on the outside are not privy to them; but that's a large part of what people like Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Bannon are paid to think about.

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Whenever the subject comes up about our motivation to work out, my standard answer is the three word response above. Occasionally I'll add, "in that order."

(For some strange reason, rhymes always seem to imbue a statement with more meaning. Saying, "Oh, because I'm vain and because the endorphins elevate my mood" wouldn't have quite the same ring.)

Most men and women work out primarily in order to be more attractive. A lot of people will tell you they're doing it for their health, and that may be partly so. But usually, vanity is a much larger part of the equation; health is merely a side benefit.

Some will say, "I just enjoy the camaraderie down here at the gym," which is a little disingenuous. Maybe they do enjoy the social aspects of working out, but there is usually more warmth -- genuine or not -- to be had at the local bar.

But most answers you'll get are relatively honest. Some people will say something to the effect of, "Oh, this is the only way I can eat what I want." That is at least a tacit admission of vanity.

"I'm just trying to stave off old age" vaguely touches on all the motivations.

"I enjoy it" tends to be true among those who play a game like basketball for exercise.

"I like the way it makes me feel" and "It's a good way for me to burn off steam" and "I'm addicted to the endorphins" all express essentially the same, very real reaction that most get to exercise.

Statements like, "I have a bet with another guy at the office about who can lose more weight," or, "I want to beat my wife at a 10k" are usually true, and don't try to hide anything.

"I hate being this skinny" and "I hate being this fat," are exceptionally honest.

Few people will tell you, "It allows me to indulge in the fantasy that I'm younger than I am." But, with ex-jocks, that's often part of the equation.

Of course, it's always tacitly assumed that you're at the gym at least partly for your sex life.

Some guys will actually admit to something along the lines of, "I like looking at the babes here," or, "This is a good place to meet women."

The real perverts -- men who do Pilates or yoga or take some other class filled mostly with women -- never admit to that. They'll always tell you they do it because they like that form of exercise. And the longer they go on about how and why they like that exercise, the bigger liars they are. (Not in every single case, but almost always.)

An earlier post described how you can tell practically everything about someone's personality from the way they work out. You can make a similar judgment from someone's explanation as to why he works out.

Friday, November 18, 2016

The previous post mentioned that serial killer Steven Gordon acting as his own lawyer was a peculiarly sociopathic hallmark.

To fully fathom how different a sociopath is, put yourself in that situation for a moment. Imagine that you've committed a terrible crime, your life is on the line, and you need representation. Wouldn't your instincts be to put yourself in the hands of an expert, or at the very least, let one help you? In those circumstances, you need someone who knows the law, who knows the ins and outs of a courtroom, who has some sense of the local judge, and who's familiar with all the intricacies and technicalities associated with legal procedure.

Nah....you can do a better job.

When you board a commercial flight, is your instinct to saunter into the cockpit and say, "You can relax now, fellas. I'll take charge here. Don't worry, I've got this under control."

When you go into a dentist's office, are you tempted to say, "Just hold the mirror for me, I'd feel more comfortable drilling my own teeth"?

When you go for a colonoscopy, do you say, "Hey, don't bother with the anesthesia, I'll just put the tube in and cut off the polyps myself"?

When you see a couple of police officers making an arrest, do you step in and say, "It's okay guys, I'll take it from here"?

The thought of doing these things seems insanely arrogant.

That's the difference between you and a sociopath.

Now, admittedly, even sociopaths don't drill their own teeth, or pretend to be able to fly a plane (Frank Abagnale, upon whom Catch Me If You Can was based, appears to be the rare exception.) But the next time you hear of someone acting as his own lawyer, especially someone with no legal training, keep these analogies in mind.

SANTA ANA, Calif. — A convicted sex offender charged with raping and killing four Southern California women while he wore an electronic monitor was a predator like the shark in the movie “Jaws,” the prosecution said on the trial’s opening day Wednesday.

In his opening statement, Orange County Deputy District Attorney Larry Yellin said GPS and mobile phone data was used to track down Steven Dean Gordon and another man, comparing it to the hunt for the killer shark.

“‘Jaws’ is about a predator,” Yellin told jurors. “This case is about two. You are about to see the hunt.”

Gordon, 47, who is acting as his own attorney, declined to make an opening statement.

He and another sex offender, Franc Cano, 30, were wearing GPS tracking devices for prior offenses when they worked together to randomly target the women in 2013 and 2014, authorities said....

Gordon and Cano have pleaded not guilty to rape and murder with special circumstances. Cano’s separate trial hasn’t started. Both could face the death penalty if convicted....

Gordon confessed during grand jury proceedings, giving graphic details about picking up the women in his car with another registered sex offender, raping them behind an Anaheim paint and body shop where the men camped, and killing them, authorities said.

But the confession won’t be allowed at trial. The judge excluded it because Gordon told police he didn’t want to talk before launching into the elaborate account of the killings, Yellin has said....

Both men are registered sex offenders and were convicted in separate cases of lewd and lascivious acts on a child.

Okay, so Gordon (and undoubtedly Cano) are undoubtedly sociopaths, no dispute there. What's interesting is to see the other ways in which they show it.

Gordon is acting as his own attorney. I keep seeing this time and again with sociopaths. Gordon is so incredibly arrogant he thinks, despite having had no legal training, that he would make a better lawyer than an actual lawyer.

There's a well known quote from Abraham Lincoln: "He who represents himself has a fool for a client." It might be more accurate to say, "....has a sociopath for a client."

Note that Gordon confessed -- in great detail -- to the police immediately after he was caught, only to plead not guilty afterwards. He probably gave the police all those lurid details because he wanted to boast about his crimes, and, well, those guys just happened to be handy.

And consider, for a moment, how utterly shameless you'd have to be to actually brag about your sexually motivated murders.

After confessing, Gordon subsequently pleaded not guilty. You have to be immune from embarrassment to give a complete confession, then plead innocent. Granted, a potential death sentence is enough motivation to do anything; but in the meantime, they have his DNA on the body.

If Gordon had an actual lawyer working for him, he would undoubtedly have been advised to try to work out a deal to avoid a death sentence simply by pleading guilty and offering to show where the other bodies could be found.

Yet another way in which both Gordon and Cano demonstrate their sociopathy is that they have also been found guilty of child molesting. Sociopaths evidently have a much more wider-ranging, free-floating sexuality than do non sociopaths. Anyone who attacks both little girls and grown women is demonstrating polymorphous tastes.

Finally, take another look at that picture of Gordon. He's not a particularly beastly-looking sort: he looks like a journalist worried about making a deadline. But he demonstrates, yet again, that sociopaths come in a full range of ethnicities, builds, and genders.

Sociopaths never really go out of character. If you observe them closely, they'll give you all sorts of clues to that character.

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

A commenter on this blog just sent me this article. It has an excellent description of small town America, and how it has been decimated by globalism. And it is right on target in its characterization of the attitudes of big city liberals toward people they regard as hicks.

The article gets a little farfetched towards the end, when it starts talking about civil war, and the farmers refusing to feed people from the cities. But, it's still a fun read.

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

It's apparent from the composition of Trump's transition team that he values loyalty above all. He has surrounded himself with people who were loyal to him throughout the campaign: Rudy Giuliani, Ben Carson, Newt Gingrich, Peter Thiel, Kellyanne Conway, and Stephen Bannon. (Chris Christie was originally a member, but has been more or less pushed out, reportedly because he's letting a soccer mom go to jail for Bridgegate.)

Trump has even included Eric, Donald, Jr., Ivanka, and son-in-law Jared Kushner as part of his transition team as well:

You have to wonder if Barron felt left out.

In any case, it is apparent that the transition team is composed of loyalists who helped campaign for Trump. But whether Trump should appoint Cabinet-level positions based purely on this basis is another matter. Trump owes something to the people who voted for him as well.

The selection of Reince Priebus as Chief of Staff was smart strategy. Priebus represents the establishment, but he will be a good conduit to Congress, whom Trump needs if he is to get anything done.

The appointment of Kellyane Conway and Stephen Bannon as senior strategists is a nod both to their loyalty and to the voters.

Ben Carson has been mentioned as a possible Secretary of Education, but it seems more likely given his background that he gets the Surgeon General position, a fitting reward for his loyalty.

And Trump is reportedly leaning toward Steve Mnuchin, an ex-Goldman guy and head of his campaign finance committee, as Treasury Secretary. This strikes a little bit of a discordant note given that Trump had criticized both Hillary and Ted Cruz for their Goldman ties.

Yesterday it emerged that Rudy Giuliani is the frontrunner for Secretary of State. It's hard not to greet that news with a little bit of dismay. This was supposedly leaked by someone high up in the Trump power structure, and so, as these things do, will probably turn out to be true.

Giuliani was a great US Attorney for the Second District of New York. Despite being of Italian descent, and despite (or because of?) his father having been a low-level gangster, Giuliani fearlessly went after the Mob, obtaining several high level convictions. He also went after Wall Street for insider trading, and obtained a couple of convictions there as well.

He was overrated as a Mayor. Crime levels in the New York City came down drastically under his tenure (from 1994 through 2001), and he deserves some credit for that, but he also benefitted from the nationwide waning of the crack epidemic, which peaked from 1990 to 1992. After 9/11, Giuliani gave a rousing speech, and was photographed with President Bush atop a heap of rubble at the site of the bombing, and in the nationwide surge in patriotism that followed, was hailed as "America's Mayor." (He gave a couple of speeches, that was all.)

Giuliani distinguished himself in the Presidential primaries in 2008 by being the biggest hawk in the field, no mean feat in a field that included eventual nominee John McCain.

One of the reasons that voters were enthusiastic about Trump in the primaries was that he was the first Republican who felt free to say that the Iraq War was a bad idea, and because he wants to cooperate with Russia in Syria. Hillary would have enforced a no fly zone over the country, which could have led to a confrontation with Russia. Obama's policy, up until a few days ago, was to support both anti-Assad and anti-ISIS forces, while Assad and ISIS fight each other; Trump rightly pointed out how illogical that strategy was.

Trump did say that he would try to undo Obama's nuclear pact with Iran. But he has not mentioned wanting to go to war with anyone beside ISIS.

It's hard to believe that Giuliani feels the same.

Giuliani would make a great Attorney General for the exact same reasons he'd be a horrible Secretary of State: he's a belligerent, confrontational guy who's unafraid to go after anybody. In fact, he often seems downright eager to go after people.

If he does get State, Giuliani would theoretically do Trump's bidding. But he'd also have Trump's ear, and on balance, he would push us in the direction of war. That would be a betrayal of the voters who elected Trump.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

A Reuters article came out yesterday which reported that Hillary blames James Comey for her defeat. She evidently feels his announcement about the emails stored on Anthony Weiner's computer was enough to tip the balance. In Hillary's sociopathic mind, nothing is ever her fault, and this is a good example. She doesn't blame herself for having created that email mess in the first place; it's Comey's fault for having investigated it.

But as Hillary spends the rest of her life gnashing her teeth, there are any number of factors she can blame for how this extremely close election was tipped. Any one of a number of people could easily have made the crucial difference. And she has plenty of people she can be mad at.

There's Anthony Weiner himself. Aargh, she never should have arranged that marriage for Huma. At the time it seemed like such a good idea, with that Jewish-Muslim alliance a harbinger of the wonderful things a Hillary administration would be able to accomplish. But then he had to go and act like a typical piggish man.

Huma, her ever present, Sapphic shadow. She should not have allowed her to appear in public wth her so often.

Those advisors who told her it would be okay to set up her own email server. Without those idiots it would have been a landslide victory for her.

Colin Powell, who denied her claims that he had recommended her email set up. Why couldn't he just keep his mouth shut?

Jill Stein, that meddlesome woman whose Green Party candidacy took votes only from Hillary.

The fact that the media overplayed their hand. Even people who'd been unaware of the media bias before this summer saw how incredibly tilted the coverage was, and they were turned off by it. If the media had dialed the hysteria level back to, say, just 75 or 80%, that would have worked so much better.

Her hubby Bill, whose long record of abusing women made all the outrage over Trump's behavior with women ring a little hollow.

Monica Lewinsky and Paula Jones, the most prominent of her husband's bimbos, and the two who led to concrete actions (impeachment and a financial settlement, respectively).

Linda Tripp, the bitch who secretly tape recorded her phone calls with Lewinsky and convinced her to not have that blue dress dry cleaned.

Gary Byrne, that loudmouth Secret Service agent who had to go and write that book about how Hillary treated the men who protected her. Couldn't she have some privacy in her own house just like everyone else?

Those Arkansas State Troopers who told of her behavior with them.

Those four guys who had the nerve to die in Benghazi.

Congressman Trey Gowdy, who pushed and prodded her during the Congressional hearings on Benghazi to the point where she cried out, "What difference, at this point, does it make?"

The BLM cast of characters, with whom she allied herself. Hands up, don't shoot, and don't vote for us.

The rioters in Charlotte. A black cop kills a black man in Charlotte, NC, so black rioters go around attacking random white people. North Carolina subsequently tilted to Trump.

Tim Kaine, that simpering, oleaginous half-man who was essentially forced upon her by the DNC, whose main claim to fame's having accepted generous "gifts" while Governor of Virginia. He turned a lot of people off with his snippy, bitchy performance during the VP debate with Mike Pence.

Bernie Sanders, who forced her leftward during the primaries and whose vast support forced the functionaries at the DNC to use all their wiles to tilt the election to Hillary.

Deborah Wasserman Schultz, whose clumsy machinations at the DNC angered a lot of Bernie supporters who might otherwise have voted for Hillary in the general election.

Frank Giustra, who engineered that sale of 20% of North American uranium assets to Russia, which Hillary approved after that donation to the Clinton Foundation.

Barack Obama, who appointed her Secretary of State and thus brought on Benghazi into her life, and the email scandal, and the accusations of her having run a play to play operation at State. And if it hadn't been for that narcissistic upstart, she would have been the first female President in 2008. Back when she was relatively clean, relatively young, and healthy.

The Arab Spring, which seemed like a breath of fresh air at the moment, but which eventually resulted in chaos and anarchy and made her and Obama's foreign policy look so shabby and ineffectual. If only Hosni Mubarak and Mummer Gaddafi hadn't been so obviously corrupt.

Vladimir Putin, who made her "reset button" with Russia look foolish, and who was obviously rooting for Trump, and who may or may not have been responsible for some of those leaks...

Julian Assange, whose Wikileaks exposed the corruption of the Democratic Party. Why couldn't he have done something similar to the Republicans? Didn't that clown realize that the Democrats are the voices of reason and enlightenment?

And most of all Donald Trump, that third rate reality TV star who inherited a real estate empire and then had the nerve to call her crooked Hillary, just because she wanted to be able to support her family too.

It was, in the end, a group effort. But any one of these people, for any one of those reasons, could have made the crucial difference.

Ah, cruel fate.

You can bet that as Hillary lies awake at night rehashing her lost opportunity, she'll think of all these people. And they won't be kindly thoughts.

Saturday, November 12, 2016

The NY Post briefly ran this article two days ago. It shows a video of an older white man being beaten by a group of young black men, because he voted for Trump. (It's not clear how they knew how he had voted; perhaps he had a Trump bumper sticker on his car.)

This is real voter intimidation.

Requiring an ID is not voter intimidation, anymore than it is airplane passenger intimidation. Or check casher intimidation. Or car driver intimidation.

You've never heard of those concepts because they're so silly. But, they're no sillier than voter intimidation.

Beating people up -- and that was a vicious beating, I suggest you watch the video -- is an entirely different matter.

This incident, of course, will never be reported by the New York Times, or the Washington Post, or CBS, CNN, or NBC. But imagine what the reaction would have been had the roles been reversed, and three strapping young white men had beaten an old black man for having voted for Clinton. It would be a national focus for weeks.

Imagine what the New York Times would have had to say:

"In an incident indicative of the kind of violence which Donald Trump has promoted, three young white men viciously attacked and beat an elderly black voter yesterday afternoon, as a young white woman urged them on. The sheer ugliness of this display of racism and voter intimidation harks back to the Jim Crow era, and America's long and ugly history of racial discrimination, violence, and lynching.It's no coincidence that this type of behavior would be shown by Trump supporters, who have shown an ugly, nativist streak throughout Trump's divisive, hateful campaign. This absolutely horrifying video, which will shock any decent person to his core, gives the lie to those who say the Republicans, led by Donald Trump, do not practice voter intimidation. We now have incontrovertible evidence. All those voices screaming for voter ID laws because of paranoid delusions about "electoral fraud" ought now to be shamed into silence forever. The problem is, Donald Trump seems incapable of shame. But he should be held to account for these types of incidents, given his direct appeals to racism and xenophobia and sexism. He has encouraged these displays of overt racism with his tone and ill-chosen words. And now, tragically, the haters have sprung forth and answered his call to violence.If this presages the spirit of the Trump administration, people of color, gays, women, Muslims, and everybody else who doesn't conform to Donald Trump's idea of what a "real American" is are no longer safe. Donald Trump has now officially declared open season on minorities. I grieve for the future of America."

But, it didn't quite happen that way. It was a black-on-white attack, because the white voted for Trump.

Friday, November 11, 2016

My nephew lives in San Francisco. He phoned yesterday, among other reasons, to exult about Trump's victory. He mentioned he had to keep his enthusiasm for Trump under wraps, though, because it could cause a huge amount of trouble for him.

It made me marvel at how the country -- or at least its urban environs -- has undergone a remarkable change in the past fifty years.

Evidently, if you're a man living in San Francisco these days, it's perfectly acceptable to say, "Do I ever love to suck cock."

Or, "I just love taking it up the ass, you know, from a really masculine guy."

An article in the NY Post yesterday described protesters' behavior after the election (my comments in parentheses):

Anti-Trump protesters take to the Streets across America Thousands of protesters chanting, “Trump is Hitler!” stormed up Sixth Avenue en route to Trump Tower on Fifth Wednesday night in one of many demonstrations nationwide against the new president-elect.
(Transcendental meditators chant in order to empty their minds; for Leftist protesters, it seems superfluous.)Those in the mob first gathered in Union Square to vent their anger over the election results.
(Union Square is the usual gathering place for drug dealers, drug users, panhandlers, and others with nothing constructive to do.)They later took to the streets and headed to Trump’s headquarters and penthouse apartment in Midtown, where they climbed light poles and burned flags. There were at least 62 people arrested, police sources said.
(Hey, if we clog up traffic, that's not our problem.)“That man who is not our president, we are going to make him hear us,” declared one demonstrator, 34-year-old Shannon Malone...
(Shannon, you may not have voted for Trump, but like it or not, he is everybody's President for the next four years.)A large marching band joined the procession, as angry cabbies and other motorists who were stuck in the sudden traffic chaos honked their horns and cursed.
(Don't the protesters realize that it's precisely this sort of behavior which converts onlookers into Trump supporters?)

“This is what the popular vote looks like,” one protester noted, referring to the fact that Hillary Clinton actually beat Trump in the popular vote, despite losing the electoral vote — the only one that counts...
(Actually, the protesters are what HRC's supporters look like; and if you take into account the likely fraud, Trump probably won the popular vote as well.)A number of demonstrators were placed under arrest for disorderly conduct, others climbed a utility pole, and one group could be seen burning an American flag.“Donald Trump, go away. Racist, sexist, anti-gay,” the crowd shouted.
(Cogent analysis seems beyond most of them, so Leftists do what children do: call names.)Heloïse, a 9-year-old fourth- grader whose family moved here from France, was one of the youngest protesters at the march.“I think it’s unfair. We voted for Hillary Clinton, but it is Trump who won. It is unfair,” Heloïse said.
(If Heloise did vote, it would have been no more illegal than the many dead people, illegal aliens, and multiple voters who undoubtedly voted for Hillary.)“We were going to go for a school trip to Washington to watch Hillary come to power in January, but now we’re not because she didn’t win.”
(Heloise's complaint is understandable for a 9-year-old -- the trip she'd been looking forward to was canceled. But had she fully grasped that most of the grownups surrounding her were no more mature than she, she might not have felt quite such solidarity.)Protesters also gathered in Chicago, where thousands blocked the entrance to that city’s Trump Tower.
(That'll show 'em. Most of the residents of the tower, which was completed in 2009, undoubtedly decided to buy or rent there because they anticipated Trump's political run and platform.)In Boston, thousands of protesters streamed through downtown, chanting, “Trump’s a racist” and carrying signs that said “Impeach Trump” and “Abolish Electoral College.”
(Normally, a country waits until a President assumes office before trying to impeach him.)On the West Coast, people smashed windows and spray-painted anti-Trump graffiti in Oakland.
(Oakland without broken windows and graffiti would be unrecognizable anyway.)Several hundred people flooded onto one of the busiest freeways in Los Angeles, causing a miles-long traffic backup.
(That's okay, commuters in Los Angeles don't depend on the freeways.)

The protesters, who had remained peaceful and not overly disruptive for most of the night, poured on to U.S. 101, which links downtown LA to Hollywood, and stayed there for most of an hour. Drivers sat and waited. Many got out of their cars.
(Many of them undoubtedly thinking, "Hmm, these protesters really do have logic and rationality on their side. Maybe I should have voted for Hillary.")

There was no violence between officers and protesters.Back in Manhattan, protesters unleashed their rage at the states that helped elect Trump.“F–k Florida!” and “F–k Indiana!” people shouted, along with “F–k Mike Pence!” and “F–k Giuliani!”
(Doesn't this sound an awful lot like a childish temper tantrum? Doesn't it make an eloquent statement about the infantile nature of Leftist protesters?)Protesters held signs that read “Impeach Trump,” “Don’t lose hope,” “Trump makes America hate” and “Not my president.”’
(Why is it always the most hateful, rage-filled people who accuse others of being "haters?")At one point, the protesters gathered in a semicircle and took turns giving reasons why they believe the Republican billionaire developer should be impeached — despite the fact that he’s not in power yet.“Rapist,” “anti-Semitic,” “anti-LGBT,” “incest,” and “KKK,” are a few of the responses protesters ticked off.
(Trump's daughter Ivanka has converted to Judaism; if in fact he is guilty of incest, wouldn't that make him philo-Semitic rather than anti-Semitic?)“I am not happy, I have no words, This country is going to sh-t and it’s scary, I feel bad for my kids,” said Nancy Gomez, 38, through tears.
(In fact, Nancy, you do have words. "Shit," for one. But at least we agree on one thing: I feel bad for your kids too.)
Did people on the Right cry after Obama was elected? Did conservatives march around chanting "Fuck Obama!" and "Impeach Obama" in the days after he was elected?

No. And that's really all you need to know about politics to understand the mentality of each side.

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

This election is a wonderful, gigantic fuck you to the real deplorables in this contest:

George Soros, the billionaire who does his utmost to spread dissension and deceit. He wants, for whatever reason, to destabilize the West. To that end he helps fund many of the shadowy groups exposed by Wikileaks and Project Veritas, and encourages the influx of Muslims into Europe and the US.

Hollywood, and its many high publicity/low IQ stars. Whatever Miley Cyrus, Alec Baldwin, Rosie O'Donnell, and George Clooney say about politics, it's usually a safe bet to assume the opposite is true. Here's hoping that all the stars who said they'd leave the country if Trump were elected make good on their threats.

The Silicon Valley bigwigs, as typified by Mark Zuckerberg. They agitate for more H1B visas for foreign workers so they don't have to pay American programmers as much, then cloak their greed with sanctimonious homilies like "We're a nation of immigrants." Actually, we're a nation where the middle class has suffered because of the globalists.

All of the politicians -- Democrat and Republican alike -- who took campaign contributions from multinational corporations, and then did their will, which was to make it easy for them to send jobs abroad -- or even reincorporate abroad -- at the expense of the American worker.

The media, which thought it could blind us to reality, with their constant hysteria about Donald Trump having tried to kiss a woman who may not have wanted to be kissed, or having the nerve to judge a beauty queen by her beauty.

The pollsters, who thought they could discourage Trump supporters from showing up at the polls. (Who can ever take their polls seriously again?)

Wall Street, which gave Hillary tons of money with the tacit understanding that while she would rail against them publicly in order to keep Bernie's supporters in line, she would actually -- wink wink -- do absolutely nothing to rein them in. Lloyd Blankfein actually forbade Goldman employees from contributing to the Trump campaign, on the pretext that Pence is a sitting Governor: hey, can't allow any of that pay-to-play stuff if you're a Hillary supporter.

The BLM movement, which has for two years pushed the ridiculous myth that black people are in more danger from whites than whites are from blacks. "Hands up, don't shoot" originated from the Michael Brown case: Brown never put his hands up, and tried to wrest an officer's gun from him.

The cuckservatives. John McCain, Mitt Romney, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush all ostentatiously refused to vote for Trump, thinking that they were demonstrating their own virtue by doing so, when in fact it was obvious they were all just sulking after having been insulted by Trump. McCain and Romney ran cowardly, inhibited Presidential campaigns, and reaped their resulting defeats. And where is it written that because you're a Republican you have to say the Iraq War was a great idea?

Barack Obama, the lazy, deceitful, conceited, closed-minded, college radical who never grew up. He never questioned his own beliefs despite all the evidence contradicting them, and he never questioned his own side's Alinsky-ite tactics no matter how sleazy they got. I don't blame him for remaining a closeted homosexual; I do blame him for being a closeted communist.

And most of all, Hillary herself. She's been compared to Lady MacBeth, Nurse Ratched, Medusa, and the Wicked Witch of the West. But none of those characters fully captured her unrelenting hypocrisy, nastiness, corruption, dishonesty, and shamelessness. (In fairness to the authors who created them, it would be impossible to do that in the space of one work of fiction.)

About Me

Virtually everyone who knows John finds him completely tactless and insufferably opinionated. He sees himself as refreshingly honest. That said, this blog is still an excellent way to kill time while putting off work. If you're a newcomer, you might find browsing through the older posts an amusing waste of time as well.